A micromachined 585 GHz Schottky mixer

Standard semiconductor fabrication processes have been used to form wavegui de components for the submillimeter wavelength;range. A 585 GHz fundamental ly pumped Schottky mixer with record performance demonstrates this technolo gy. It consists of an etched silicon horn, a diced waveguide, and a lithogr aphically formed microstrip channel for the diode circuit. The block dimens ions are precisely controlled and extremely sharp. The measured mixer noise temperature is 1200K (DSB), which is equivalent to the best result obtaine d with standard metal machining.